Like this:

Comments

Great discussion about the exploits. I agree that something needs to be done about “EC Farming,” but I do think that there is a difference between a grinder and an exploit.

The devs have been releasing new “content” to complement the buckets: storyless repeatable grinds that have no imagination. Rinse and repeat.

You can’t say that isn’t a legit use of the Foundry when it’s the type of content that the devs are producing. And if it’s the content that the players seem to prefer, then we can’t really complain much, beyond the fact that we are trying to write Star Trek stories for an entirely different type of Star Trek game. And we can’t really get mad when players don’t play our stories in a game that no longer even tries to tell stories.

Expect the next generation of boff grinders, since the current ones are not well designed. Boff grinders: the next gen: A single group of targs takes 17 minutes to patrol a map, to eventually find the spawn point and be killed by boffs.

I hear ya, and honestly I have less of a problem with dailies because Cryptic makes them. I’d probably still rant if they made it to the top, but the problem is most that made it to the top are exploit missions, where you don’t even need to be around to play. Just set weapons to autofire, or set boffs up for ground, and walk away while the game does the rest. I don’t get why people find this fun and why they play a game at this point, but it happens. It’s really up the Cryptic at this point to keep the foundry clean and the quality up by monitoring the missions being created, and taking down exploits. Either they do it, or they make trustworthy players monitors. Those are the only two options I see in dealing with this, other than ignoring it.

I agree with both of you. It’s not good to see “EC farming” and “Boff Grinder” missions so popular. They are definitely not what the Foundry was designed for, and it’s frustrating to see Cryptic sitting on its hands about it. These are not in my eyes “player created content” as the Foundry is said to contain. They are nothing more than sector alert battles which already exist in the game from the Devs. I wish they would do something about them. I made my Argus Array Defense mission out of frustration using my custom maps from my series, and although it has heavy combat, it has some story and tasks other than Blow up all the ships in one shot and collect the loot. These exploits definitely are not Foundry, and Cryptic should act on it, not ignore it.

And, I’m sorry about the second of my vamp missions being unavailable for so long, I kinda made an update to the nebula but I forgot to publish it…. Then I got a Mac and left for a year or two. My brother got me back into the game.